


Heartbreak Radio

by BlindSwandive



Series: Masquerade fills [14]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Birth Control, Dark John Winchester, Dean Winchester is Protective of Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester is a good brother, Domestic Violence, Emergency Contraceptives, Forced Feminization, Fucked up gender dynamics, Knotting, M/M, Menstruation, Omega Sam Winchester, Ovulation, Patriarchy, Protective Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester Is Too Smart For This Shit, Sucks to Be an Omega, To Be Continued, Underage Rape/Non-con, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:19:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23626771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlindSwandive/pseuds/BlindSwandive
Summary: Male omegas are rare, and no one expects to become one.  If you do, your whole world can turn upside-down.    One day, Sam Winchester is a smart, fierce son of a hunter.  The next, his father looks at him like he's meat and should be playing wife.  Only Dean seems to still see him the same.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, John Winchester/Sam Winchester
Series: Masquerade fills [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1280822
Comments: 16
Kudos: 106
Collections: SPN_Masquerade Spring 2020





	Heartbreak Radio

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wingstocarryon (wings_of_crows)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wings_of_crows/gifts).



> For the Spn-Masquerade prompt: "Sam and Dean were both raised like normal guys, aka like alphas. But now that Sam is turning out to be an unexpected and rare male omega, John suddenly expects different things of him. Like hips and boobs he doesn't seem to have. Like being able to cook. Like sex.
> 
> Cause that's the job of an omega, right?
> 
> Only Dean seems to still see him the same.
> 
> Preference is for no heat/etc, just sex roles based on fertility..."
> 
> I may have figured out this was prompted by my girlfriend and may have been extra interested in filling it for that. ^_^* Love you sweet girl. This is not quite the standard a/b/o trappings.

Sam was sharpening a machete when it happened. 

Ironic, he decided later; you couldn't get much more _alpha_ than taking a hard whetstone to long, phallic instrument of death. And nothing, not one fucking thing about turning out to be an omega made him any less capable of doing it, whatever the fucking troglodyte he used to consider a father seemed to think. He was just as strong, just as smart, just as coordinated, just as capable of maintaining the correct angle of stone against blade to sharpen rather than dull it, to smoothe burrs for a clean cut.

He just also happened to have a uterus. One apparently capable of such profound cramping that he'd dropped the machete and fallen to the floor, curling into a ball of pure agony.

For one delirious moment he'd thought his appendix was bursting, but he'd dug with his fingers and the locus was wrong. He mumbled to a frantic Dean that no, he didn't need to go to the hospital, maybe it was just food poisoning and could he just help him to the bathroom, and they were halfway there when Sam felt something oozing down his legs.

Something, well, _slick._

At first he'd just been grateful he hadn't soiled himself. Later, he was pretty sure shitting himself and dying of embarrassment would have been preferable. At least that would have been fast.

Being an omega? That was forever.

***

Dean must have been able to smell it--at least if Sam's health teacher in seventh grade hadn't been making things up--but he didn't show it if so. He'd run the tub hot and helped Sam in and then put him to bed after. But Dad--their dad-- _John_ \--

John had had a longer shift at the garage than Dean, that day, and then had apparently gone out after, and had come home a little drunk. Or maybe a lot drunk, it was hard to tell sometimes. But drunk or not, _he'd_ been able to smell it. It was mostly blood, this time, and Sam thought it smelled like it--blood and salt and something else he couldn't quite put a finger on, something thick and slightly sweet--but John had said it smelled like pussy in the house (okay, yeah, he was a lot drunk) and it didn't matter that Dean had scrubbed the floor on his knees, Sam was still leaking into an old shredded tee-shirt and John found him out. And that had more or less been the end of what had never really passed as a normal life but had at least been normal for _them._

Sam heard Dean and John arguing in the hall, Dean pleading with him to go to bed, to just let Sam sleep, to let him be, and eventually John slammed the door shut down the hall and Sam shook with relief. Dean crept into their room after and ignored his own bed to sleep on top of the covers back to back with Sam, a human barrier between him and the door, and with the warmth at his back Sam fell into fitful sleep.

In the morning the ache in his gut was a little better, but everything else went ugly.

Sam shuffled awkwardly around the apartment starting to get ready for school, and John, dark-eyed and hollow and hungry, said, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Making a sandwich," Sam muttered, facing away to cut it. "For lunch. You know, for school."

"You're not going back."

Sam froze. "It's not the '50s, I can use a rag and get through it."

"You're not going back," John repeated slower, like he thought Sam were suddenly dim. "You're staying home from now on. Called the school to disenroll you."

Sam noticed then that Dean was glaring at the floor, red-eyed and fuming. This was the second time this argument was happening this morning, then.

"You can't do that. I'm fifteen, I'm still legally required to--"

"--unless you're the only omega in the family. Then I can pull you out to 'mitigate undue family hardship.'" Sam could hear the hard smile in his voice. "School board recognizes every family needs an omega at home." 

"What the fuck?" Sam hissed. Because they were fucking orphans, they expected _him_ to play mommy?

" _Language,_ " John barked. "You watch your mouth, kid. If I say you're staying home and taking care of this family like a goddamn omega, you're staying home like a goddamn omega."

"You can't make me!" Sam shouted, wheeling on John.

John stood and glowered. "Put it down."

Sam was still holding the knife from cutting his sandwich. It was a dull steak knife but his hand tightened around the cracked handle instinctively, even as a panicked prickle of sweat broke out over his neck, under his hair. It wouldn't be clean, but it could do damage. 

"Sammy," Dean pleaded weakly, "Sammy, you... Buddy you don't want to do something like that..."

"Don't I?" Sam said, flat, through gritted teeth.

"You never pull a weapon on someone if you ain't gonna use it, kid," John said, like a threat, beginning to advance.

"I will use it," Sam insisted, but he felt something coming apart inside, some doubt creeping in and making his resolve crumble. He wasn't going to murder his own father; Dean would never forgive him. Maybe he could injure him, just to make a point, but then their dad would just be madder when he healed. If it wasn't a full break, Sam would be in more danger later. And if it was, he'd be on the run forever, or go to jail, or--

The knife was twisted out of his hand just as a massive palm cracked across his face. He ricocheted against the counter on his way down. His face bloomed with pain and his ear rang.

"Dad!" Dean shouted, and then he was on them, gathering Sam away and behind his body.

"You better watch yourself too, boy, or you'll be back on that damn honor farm before you can blink," John growled.

Sam had no idea what the hell that meant, but Dean gaped, clearly shaken. He mumbled, "Yes, sir," and stared at the floor, looking just as helpless and twisted up as Sam felt.

"More like it. It's final," John insisted, "you're staying home and you'd better behave. You hear me?"

Sam and Dean mumbled, "Yes, sir," in unison, but Sam boiled inside.

***

And just like that, Sam was something else. Something weaker; lesser; coveted but diminished. Every fiber of him disagreed, and he snatched any moment he could to strengthen his muscles--doing push-ups, pull-ups, shadow-boxing, anything to remind himself he was just as strong as he had been. His school books were taken from him and returned to the district, so he dug into any book he could, too, any lore, to remind himself he was just as smart.

He craved learning. Suddenly, instead of writing essays and solving geometry and studying anatomy, Sam was making John and Dean's morning coffee and bagging their lunches, cleaning and trying to figure out how to feed them all breakfast and dinner (why cereal and takeout were no longer good enough was never explained). Three nights in a row of overcooked spaghetti with lukewarm canned sauce bought him time at the local library with the excuse he desperately needed a cookbook and a Home Economics textbook; he snuck out a few extra texts in his coat just for the stimulation.

Dean had privately told Sam he could make his own coffee and sandwiches, could help with the meals, and Sam had been more grateful than he could stand to let on. But then John had popped Dean one for countermanding orders when he'd caught him at it, and it ended inside of a week. Dean always looked guilty when Sam handed him his lunch before work, afterwards, and Sam made a couple of brutal digs out of helpless rage, but Dean just nodded like he believed it and Sam felt too sick to keep it up for long. He muttered an apology one night and Dean had hugged him harder than when John had finally brought him home after that month lost in New York, a few years before. Sam had had to let go and go read about sailor's knots to keep from crying.

In spite of resenting the subject matter, Sam learned fast; he couldn't help it. He went at domestic life like it was war, started pouring his aggression into kneading bread dough, into smashing bones open to make stock, into tearing fabric along the grain to sew curtains by hand and patch shirts and repair upholstery. He calculated baker's percentages just to work the algebra and cut pieces for a quilt from rags and ruined shirts for the geometry; he rendered tallow from stock and roasts to make quick-burning, salt-laden firelighters to still feel like a hunter, and bought and butchered whole birds for the blood and organs when he found a footnote in a disused tome about using them to lure and trap an obscure monster.

Sam's fingers got impossibly more calloused, rather than less, and his fingertips became a mess of scars from cooking knives (now honed to perfection, thank you) and constant sewing needle pricks. Dean apologized, embarrassed, when he brought home a half-working sewing machine he'd found on a curb, to help with the latter, but Sam had seized on it with a wild fervor, since it gave him an excuse to go back to the library for manuals on how to repair it and sew with it. Then he sewed himself a set of menstrual pads for what his (alpha) health teacher had said would be "a manageable one to two tablespoons of blood" and which apparently bore no resemblance to reality, and a smaller set for ovulation slick which so far hadn't been as much of a problem in spite of the (alpha) (idiot) health teacher spending an uncomfortable amount of time on how copious that would be. Dean still never showed any sign of smelling either on Sam (maybe he was just better at hiding it), but John made off-color comments about it with increasing frequency. It made Sam's skin crawl, and set his teeth on edge. It made Dean clench his fists so tight that the skin over his knuckles went white and red.

One day after getting home from work with John, Dean came in looking hunted, and spent the rest of the evening hovering over Sam, with one sorry excuse after another. And when Sam finished scrubbing the kitchen down after dinner and went to pass out, Dean said he'd turn in early, too, and followed him. 

Sam dug into a dresser drawer for a tee-shirt to sleep in. "Gonna tell me what the _Bodyguard_ routine is about, yet?"

Dean closed their door behind him and looked anywhere but Sam. Sam rolled his eyes and shucked his jeans. Ugh; he needed to change his ovulation pad, too. The flow was heavier this time.

"I been thinking," Dean said, as though he hadn't just ignored Sam's question. "You should get the bed by the window. Not getting enough sunlight, probably gonna mess with your, uh, vitamin D levels." He started gathering things from the bedside there and tossing them onto Sam's bed.

"Uh, bullshit," Sam said, stuffing clothes in the hamper and pulling the old oversized, hole-filled tee over his head. "You trying to sneak out or something?"

"Naw, it'll be good for you. Come on, Sammy." Dean played calm, but Sam could see the thread of tension running through it.

"Dean, just tell me _why_ and maybe I'll consider it, okay?"

"Sam--" Dean stopped and glared into the carpet. "Just... trust me, Sammy," he said, quietly, and it was so uneasy and so earnest that Sam decided he did. They spent the next half hour first handing each other's things across between the beds, then eventually getting stupid and throwing things at one another and laughing themselves sick, and by the time they gave in and turned out the lights, Sam had forgotten the strange tension and his heart was lighter than it had been in weeks; he slept more soundly than he had in weeks, too. 

But Dean's eyes were heavy with black circles the next day and he wouldn't explain that, either. Sam gave up and tried to just be content with getting rest. John stared at them like he was sizing up a bar fight or a poolplayer while Sam served pancakes, so Sam burned his next plate just a little, on purpose. Too much and he'd get an earful (or on a bad day, a thump), but he was getting better at gauging just how far he could go and still have it be judged as passable human error. 

"See you tonight, kid," was all John said when he and Dean took their lunches, but something about the way he said it left Dean looking raw and tense, and his grip tore the paper sack.

Sam repacked it and sent them on their way. He decided he'd sew Dean a lunch sack that would be sturdier (and yeah, maybe one for John, too, to keep the peace), and watched the Impala drive off.

When it rumbled back home that night, Sam was listening to a radio he'd repaired (so yeah, maybe a general small appliance repair book had accidentally found its way home with him alongside the sewing machine repair manual) and babysitting a pot of risotto.

"Made you guys lunch sacks," he said when the door opened, not bothering to turn around. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the table where he'd left them. He was proud of them, though he'd never admit it; they'd be washable, he'd quilted them for insulation, and he'd sewn in a sturdy velcro closure. His seams were even and clean, and his top-stitching was getting better every day.

He tried not to grind his teeth that that was where he was sourcing his pride, these days. 

A jacket thunked down on the table. "Smells good."

John.

Sam rolled his eyes. Not even a 'thanks, kid'? 

He glanced back toward the door; no Dean. Sam frowned and decided against any kind of smart remark for the moment, at least until his brother got in from the car or wherever he was and he had at least the illusion of a barrier. "Risotto," he said, instead, stirring it again. "Mushroom and homemade chicken stock."

"S'not it," John said from way too close behind Sam, who almost jumped out of his skin. 

"Shit," he said, catching his breath, and reached to turn down the radio. He gave Elvis a silent apology; it was just too dangerous if John was going to skulk. 

"Language," John muttered, and now Sam could feel his breath on the top of his head. He kept stirring, but all the hair stood up on the back of his neck.

"W-where's Dean?" he asked, and silently scolded himself for stammering.

"Joe had him stay for an hour of overtime. I mighta mentioned we could use the money." The note of sly triumph in his voice started Sam sweating. And then his dad-- _John_ \--was pushing up against him from behind, one big hand on either side of his waist, bracketing him against the counter.

"What--what the fuck are you doing?" Sam asked, hating the shake in his voice.

"Kid, if you don't watch your fucking mouth," John threatened, and then his groin was mashed up against Sam's ass, and Sam could feel the hard line of his erection even through the extra layers of flannel there to catch his--

\--his slick.

_Fuck._

"Dad--" he tried, wondering if it might snap him out of it to be reminded, "Dad, what--"

"Shut up," John said, down in his chest, crowding Sam against the counter.

In a panicked instant, Sam flung back an elbow, ready to make a break for it, but John was sober--he was _sober how could he even think of doing this sober_ \--and that meant he was almost as fast as Sam, and stronger, and he caught the blow before it could land. Sam jerked to get his arm free, but before he could get any separation, John's hand was clenched in his hair, and he was just off-balance enough that John had no trouble bouncing Sam's face off the formica.

His vision blacked out and he tasted blood. He was pretty sure the crack he heard was his nose breaking. Blood was definitely flowing freely, and when he tried to breathe in, he choked on it.

"Breathe through your mouth," John advised, and Sam jerked, furious, but John twisted his arm up behind his back far enough that if Sam kept struggling, it would come out of the socket.

"Let me go," he said, thickly, instead. "Please--you don't want to do this--it's--it's--"

John's weight came down on his back, blanketing over his body, pinning his arm against his back. One hand was still in his hair, mashing his face to the counter, but the other was free, sliding down his hip, catching on his sweats and briefs.

"No," Sam choked, though his brain in some perverse self-defense refused to process what exactly he was fighting. John kicked his feet a little wider apart, and shoved the waistbands down below his ass, and Sam expected to feel cold from the air catching the wet skin but there wasn't enough space between them. "No," he repeated frantically, and a dry, warm hand was reaching down into the wetness. The hand was hard, all bone and callouses, and then it was holding--holding--

Sam clenched, but John's dick breached the tight ring of muscle anyway, rocking and sawing until it hurt too much for Sam to keep squeezing. 

"That's it... Let me in, 's what you're made for," John muttered hot against his ear, and Sam jerked automatically but didn't get anywhere. Tears beaded up in his eyes and he pushed them open wide, staring at the pot on the stove rather than let them fall. He could just see the little pool of blood on the countertop from his broken nose and split lip, and he tried to picture the charts from his old anatomy texts, tried to remember the name of the bone that was broken, and if there were any major arteries running through the nose.

"Christ I missed having an omega in the house," John breathed, grinding against his ass, and Sam felt sick. "Good food and good pussy..." He punctuated the last word with a hard thrust, forcing a sharp sound out of Sam as he rocked into the counter. He gritted his teeth against another.

The slick flowed freer the harder John pushed. Sam knew it was his body's defense against tearing and damage but it felt like a betrayal, and John groaned on top of him, satisfied, as the way went smoother. The knot started to swell at the base, catching inside of Sam, shortening John's thrusts as he started to tie.

"Off," Sam pleaded, on the off chance a man willing to rape him next to their dinner might at least see the wisdom of not pumping his fifteen-year-old son full of sperm, but John just rode faster, leaving Sam's insides feeling like they were being ratcheted open by degrees. Which they more or less were.

Sam tried to focus on the radio. Could it really still be on the same song as when John came up behind him?

He suddenly thought he might hate the sound of Elvis's voice. He blinked out tears and hated himself a little, too. But not as much as he hated John.

John came somewhere in the middle of the next song (Sam wasn't going to be able to listen to Roy Orbison again, either) and laid panting on Sam's back while the knot did its work, holding the semen inside like some kind of perverse biological cork. He slid out as Jo Stafford started singing something wistful, and Sam managed to hold out just long enough for John to get outside for a smoke to start crying.

Sam kicked a cabinet, punched a wall, and finally screamed into a couch cushion before fishing out the first aid kid. When he finally stopped himself hyperventilating, he awkwardly pinched at the bridge of his nose to make sure the shape was still right before gauzing and taping it. He tried desperately to squeeze as much mess out of his body into the toilet as he could, and cleaned away blood and slick and semen. He put his clothes back in order and went back to the kitchen. 

The risotto was only a little stuck to the bottom of the pot, and not so burned he couldn't scrape it loose and salvage it. 

John was whistling when he came back inside. Sam was pretty sure it was "Love Me Tender." 

He smashed the radio.

***

Dean had known. One look, and Dean had known, and Sam had known Dean had known, and he hated Dean for it, even as Dean tried desperately to get him alone, to check on him, to take a look at his nose or his lip or the shoulder he was favoring. Sam didn't say a word to either of them the rest of the night, swatting Dean away if he got too close, and only narrowly stopped himself from smashing the sewing machine when John finally said something about the lunch sacks. He cleaned the kitchen and went to bed, but didn't sleep.

Lying in bed facing away from the door, with Dean's bed and eventually Dean in it between his body and the hallway, he suddenly realized deep in his belly why Dean had made him change beds, and why Dean hadn't slept. Dean had known--or at least suspected--and had guarded Sam through the night.

So John sabotaged him at work, so he could take what he wanted anyway.

Sam laughed and cried both at the irony.

Dean didn't try to talk to him, when he came to bed, didn't try to look him in the eye, just pulled his knife out from under his pillow and sat at the edge of his bed facing the closed bedroom door for the rest of the night. Sam didn't think he'd be able to rest, but any time he started to get crushed under a wave of panic, he peeked over his shoulder to see Dean's silhouette in the dark, watchful and on guard, and eventually he fell into uneasy sleep.

***

The next morning, Dean pleaded sick and stayed home. John had looked dubious, but then Dean had thrown up in the middle of the breakfast table, and there was no arguing with a vomiting man. Dean stumbled for the bathroom. 

Sam spit in John's sandwich in the confusion, and left his lunch packed by the door before starting to clean up the mess. He'd never been so grateful for the stench of sick in his life.

Sam was pretty sure Dean had slipped some Ipecac from the first aid kit, but he didn't ask. 

He cleaned until John left, and then brought Dean some water with baking soda and said, "Sleep." It was his first and only word in 16 hours. 

Dean said, "Sammy," and looked haunted, looked red-eyed and heartbroken, but Sam just shook his head. 

"Sleep," he said again, and pushed Dean toward his bed. Dean stared at the floor but went. Sam guessed he only did it because he didn't have any plans to sleep that night either. 

Sam thought he maybe didn't hate Dean after all.

As Dean folded exhausted into bed, Sam closed the blinds and curtains to make the room dark enough to rest. Dean was still facing the door, still on guard, even though John was gone, even though Sam was awake.

Sam felt a little safer. 

"Dean--" he tried from the doorway, but couldn't get any further, shook his head. "Thanks," he mumbled, finally, and left him to rest.

Sam cleaned and disinfected the table until his hands knotted up from tension and his skin burned from scrubbing. He took a bath but wound up more or less repeating the process, and eventually gave up on trying to do anything else 'productive.' He crept into their room and dressed in jeans that were a little old and tight--ones that wouldn't come off without a lot of work--and a belt, and two layers of shirts even though it wasn't really cold enough for it. He doubled up on his ovulation pads, too, just in case. He sat on his bed and stared at the blanket. When that didn't divulge anything useful, he stared at Dean's back.

Sam set the alarm for about an hour before John would be back, and cautiously, a little sick to his stomach, he crept over to Dean's bed and sat on the edge. He tried to disturb the mattress as little as possible, and when Dean didn't stir, he laid down carefully along the far edge, facing away. There wasn't really enough room for much space between them, and when they both breathed in at once, their backs would touch, just for a moment, which made Sam tense into knots. But the sound of Dean's breathing behind him was the only thing that felt even a little safe right now, and eventually Sam rested.

When the alarm went off, he woke up horrified.

"Dean," he rasped, stumbling to smack the alarm off, "Dean you have to get me pills."

"What?" Dean asked, groggy, sitting up.

"Birth control. Somehow, I--I need it, I can't--" He was starting to hyperventilate.

"Shit," Dean said, and looked green. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll--I'll get it. Somehow," he mumbled, scrubbing at his face with his palms. He took a breath and reached out, palm open, like Sam was a dog that might bite. "Don't worry, okay? I'll figure it out. I promise."

"You promise," Sam said like a warning, like a plea, and tried to slow his breathing.

"I promise," Dean said, firmer. "I won't--you're not getting knocked up," he added, and sounded almost as sick and angry as Sam felt. And determined, full of steel.

Sam's heart rate slowed and he sighed out a shaky breath.

"Okay. Yeah. Thanks."

Dean nodded, but didn't quite meet his eye.

"I'm--" Dean began, but stopped. There was a long, strained moment, before he managed, "I'm sorry, Sammy. I'm sorry I didn't--" He waved a hand to encompass something too big to say.

Sam nodded and didn't quite meet Dean's eyes, either.

"Yeah," he said weakly, after a moment.

"Yeah," Dean agreed.

***

Dean kept up the pretense of a stomach flu for another two days while they waited for Sam to stop leaking, and Sam played up the obedient omega angle to keep from being left alone with John for any length of time, whether by keeping in motion to bring broth to Dean or fussing over his temperature or scrubbing down a potentially 'contaminated' surface ("Noroviruses and rotaviruses are incredibly contagious..."). He was pretty sure John was onto them, giving long looks and roving around the house at odd hours, but Sam was playing just inside the lines and keeping meals on the table and for the moment that was enough to buy patience.

He slept in Dean's bed, back to back, wrapped in his own blanket.

The minute John left for work the last day, Dean threw himself into motion, yanking on clothes.

"I got a line on the pills. And, uh, on how to take the first pack in case, uh. In case of, um."

"In case it's closing the barn doors after the horses are gone," Sam supplied flatly.

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "Two right away, two twelve hours later, something like that--I wrote it down," he soothed when Sam gave him a _look,_ and dug out his wallet for a receipt with terse notes in block print on the back. Sam took it and clutched it like a lifeline.

"I'll be back in a couple hours, tops," Dean went on, hastily pulling on his jacket.

"Wait!" Sam cursed himself silently for how much that sounded like a yelp. "Can't I--shouldn't I go with you?" The thought of being there without Dean was too big, felt like a bubble rising in his throat trying to choke him.

"Too dangerous. If we're both gone and Dad comes home for lunch he'll know something's up, but if I'm gone, you can say I was feeling better and went to the store. I'll pick up a steak or something on the way back just in case." He braced both hands on Sam's shoulders firmly and looked him in the eyes unflinching, and even though Sam didn't want to look back, he was grateful. Dean was looking at him with the same fierce affection he always had, still looked at him like he was _human,_ was more than meat. 

Sam flung himself against Dean's chest and hung on.

Dean wrapped him up tight, crushing him close. Sam could hear his heart pounding against his ribs.

"We'll get through this, Sammy," Dean mumbled into his hair. "Got you, brother."

 _Got you, brother._ Sam hung onto that like a lifeline, too.

Sam eventually let him go, but he sharpened every knife in the house while Dean was gone.

***

Dean got back with pills and meat with only a half hour to spare, so Sam took the extra dose of pills per Dean's notes and quickly hid the rest in his mattress. He got the steaks sizzling just in time for John to come in and prayed he could keep from looking too nervous about their subterfuge.

Luckily steak was a pretty reliable distraction. Especially rubbed with salt and cracked pepper and still bleeding. Especially alongside a beer with a whiskey chaser.

John ate and drank like a king and passed out early.

They got away with it.

Dean helped with the kitchen, and they crashed on the couch together afterwards with a pilfered beer to share and watched dumb action flicks into the wee hours. It wasn't normal; it didn't erase the last three months; but it was the closest thing he'd felt all season and Sam settled inside. Dean slung an arm around him and eventually Sam pulled his knees to his chest to curl up against him. He fell asleep with his head on his brother's shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> ....There are really unhappy cookies for the reader in here and if you notice them I will love you. <3
> 
> ....I think this is going to get worse before it gets better.


End file.
